The Defence Professor

"You know, it really could have been worse," Hermione said.

"Can't see how," said one of the Patil twins (the Gryffindor one, whatever her name was).

"Well," said Lavender Brown, "at least the bloodshed was kept to a minimum."

"And St. Mungo's says Neville's supposed to make a full recovery," added Hannah Abbot.

"And we weren't expelled," Hermione pointed out.

"Also," continued Lavender, "Snape managed to Finite that toad—who summoned that, anyway? I don't think I've ever seen quite that shade of orange before—before Pansy Parkinson suffered permanent injury."

"Really, it's a wonder he knew which one to cast it on. Couldn't tell the two apart myself," muttered Ron.

"I think only taking ten points off showed remarkable restraint, all things considered," Hermione mused. "Shame it was from every first year in Gryffindor, though."

"Because, you know, seeing as how she looks like a toad," Ron said, disappointed at the initial lack of response.

"Assuming we don't assault the Slytherins anymore, and we all put in a few extra hours and some hard work in practice and revisions," Hermione said cheerfully, "I think we might be able to manage to beat the Hufflepuffs at least—not that there's anything wrong with them, perfectly respectable house—in the House Cup standings."

Seamus and several other largely interchangeable first years groaned.

"Nothing a Golden Snitch or two won't fix," Ron said hopefully. "Wood reckons—assuming we can find a Seeker half as good as Charlie was—we stand a decent chance at taking the Quidditch Cup from Slytherin this year."

"Cease," said the Bloody Baron. He didn't exactly shout, and it wasn't exactly loud—in fact, it seemed little more than a whisper. But even over the ten complaining eleven-year-olds (and Hermione, who was in fact twelve) the ghost's voice was clearly audible. "Be glad it's only house points and detention… when I still attended this school, we didn't use the Cat O'Nine Tails."

The Gryffindors fell silent. A few scratched their heads, pondering the Baron's last statement. Harry knew he shouldn't—he really, really knew it—but he just couldn't help himself. He had to ask.

"D-don't you mean, you still used the Cat O'Nine Tails?"

"No. It was introduced by a weak, soft headmaster after Emeric the Evil retired—by a Hufflepuff, as I recall," the Baron mused. Harry swallowed. If a nine-tipped whip was seen as soft enough for a Hufflepuff—not that there's anything wrong with them—to use instead of whatever they did before…

The entire first year of Gryffindor was in detention, overseen by the silvery coloured ghost of Slytherin. Their task was simple enough on the surface: they had to keep the suits of armour that lined the halls of Hogwarts free of rust. The catch wasn't that they couldn't use magic (which they couldn't, of course) or even that they were supervised by the Bloody Baron (Milo couldn't help but wonder where the Bloody Baron's eponymous blood came from. It isn't because the Baron died violently, or Nearly Headless Nick would be at least as bad...) but it was that the paintings were ordered to ignore them during detention.

Now, you may be thinking, "is that all?" And if so, it is because you've never been eleven years old in a shopping mall after closing time, completely alone, with only a teddy bear. Only in this case, the shopping mall has (at last count, and rounding up) a completely unknown number of floors. And the staircases move. As do some floors. One notable corridor appears to twist somewhere in the middle, and by the end of it you're walking on stone and there's a carpet along the ceiling. But only on every other Tuesday, except on leap years. And the shopping mall is a castle. And that castle is Hogwarts.

And your teddy bear is missing.

It only took half an hour for Hannah (Neville was still in St. Mungo's) to vanish.

"Okay, the thing we need to do is not panic," Hermione said calmly, "and search for her in a group. As long as we all stay together, we should be—"

"Nah, that's rubbish," Ron interrupted. "We're at a four-way intersection, and there's still nine of us. We can find her faster if we divvy up, send two in every direction except one, which gets three. Faster we find her, the faster we clean these ruddy statues."

"No, there's only three directions to go in unless we go backwards and in any case that's beside the point because if we split then we'll have to stop and go looking for you—"

"What, just because you're so much smarter than all of us?" Ron asked rudely. "For all you know, we could have to go find you!"

"That's exactly my point!" Hermione shouted.

"So we're in agreement. We split up."

"No!" Milo shouted. "You never split the party! Never!"

"You're one to talk, you got us into this mess," Lavender accused.

"Says the girl who lit Pansy Parkinson on fire," that Patil girl muttered.

"That cow had it coming," Lavender said defensively. "She called me a cow."

"We're getting sidetracked," Hermione insisted. "We need to find Hannah, and the best way to do that is to systematically search every room and hallway, as a group, that she could have got to in ten minutes."

"That could take the rest of our lives!" Ron said. "Let's just split up and find her already!"

"No, I'm telling you—"

"Fine, how about a compromise? I'll split up with Harry, Dean and Seamus, you and the others stay together. Coming, Harry?"

Harry gave an apologetic look and followed Ron and the others down the corridor on the right-hand side.

Hermione sighed. "Okay, well the rest of us can start on the left and work our way through—"

"Who put you in charge, anyway?" Lavender asked. "Parvati, Fay, and I can take the centre. We'll have found Hannah and be back to cleaning statues while you're still organising." Lavender strode off, followed by a pair of witches.

"Parvati!" Milo said. "So that's her name."

Hermione groaned.

"You know, I sometimes wish I'd been sorted into Ravenclaw," she muttered. "This sort of behaviour would never stand there. I don't suppose you have any tricks up your sleeve?"

"Loads," said Milo. "But Locate Creature is a fourth-level spell, and I can only do up to second. And unless Hannah's met an unfortunate end, Locate Object won't be able to find her."

"Huh," said Hermione. "So you can find objects with magic, but not living things?"

"Yeah, that's basically what I just said. Any unique object I've seen firsthand, or the closest one of a type of object."

"Find her robes," commanded Hermione.

Milo paused.

"I think that's cheating," he said. "Or at least, bending the rules to the point of breaking... I like it." He imagined, as best he could, Hannah's robes in his mind—easy, because they were exactly the same as the ones he and Hermione were wearing. "Locate Object—Hannah's robes."

"So, where is she?"

"Uh. Sort of between forwards and left, and up a little. Now down. Now up again."

"What? Any idea how far?"

"No, except that she has to be within the range of the spell. 560 feet at the outer limit."

They decided to head left, based on the fact that it seemed to have as big a chance of being correct as forwards and they didn't have to deal with Lavender and whoever those other two girls were.

"Wish Neville were here," Milo said.

"Why's that?" Hermione asked as they walked. He was nice enough—for a boy—Hermione supposed, but he wasn't exactly useful.

"Well, see, if he were then he'd be the one who wandered off and got lost. Then we'd be looking for him," he explained, "and not Hannah Abbot."

"You have a very unusual view of the world, you know that? So tell me," she asked slyly, "why would you rather Hannah were here, with us?"

"Because then there'd be three of us, and we'd have a higher chance of making our Spot checks."

"Our what's?"

"Spot checks. You make them when, say, Peeves is sneaking up on you from behind. And I have a feeling we failed one."

"And why is that?"

"Just a feeling I get sometimes—wait. Hannah's moving." The spell stopped tugging him forwards and left, and abruptly started pulling more to the right. And then down, rapidly. "She's falling," he said. "And depending on the distance, it might be pretty fast."

"We should find a professor immediately," Hermione said. "She might be hurt."

"For once, I agree with you—but how are we going to find one? Face it, we're lost."

"Gah!" Hermione said. "There must be something we can do. What other spells do you know?"

Milo started listing. For an ordinary Wizard of his level, there would be only about a dozen or so—but Milo was no ordinary Wizard. He was an optimized Wizard, and one extremely broken ability he'd traded the ability to make magical scrolls for allowed him to cast any kind of wizard Divination spell—spells for finding things, information, and people—he'd heard of. He'd heard rumours that it could be used for non-Wizard spells as well, but Milo was unwilling to risk it. He knew the horror stories of what could happen to those who bent the rules too far... suffice to say that the universe could be capricious.

"You can read people's minds?" Hermione gasped, after Milo explained Detect Thoughts. "You're a Legilimens!"

"First of all, that's not a word, and second of all, only surface thoughts. There's a whole bunch of restrictions on it, too."

"Other than Locate Object, though, there's not much there to help us. A rather large amount of them seem to be focussed on fighting, which can't be very useful."

Milo chuckled slightly.

"Well, not today, maybe. We're completely screwed, aren't we?"

"Unfortunately," Hermione said. She sighed and slid down a wall, sitting on the cold stone floor. "If only we could ask one of the portraits for help."

"M-m-might I b-be of assistance?" Asked a timid voice. Behind them stood the erratic Professor Quirrell.

"See. Told you we failed a spot check," Milo muttered.

"Professor! You have to help us!" Hermione blurted out. "Hannah went missing and everyone ran off to go find her, and now we're hopelessly lost. We can't ask the portraits for help, because we're... in... detention." She said the last three words slowly, as if her mouth found them strange and foreign. Milo shrugged. He'd never been in detention, either, but then again he'd never really gone to school before.

"Sh-shouldn't be t-terribly difficult," he stammered. "W-when I w-was in R-R-Romania once, my p-party was separated by v-v-v-"the blood drained from his face, and he sat down shakily. "v-vampires."

There's vampires in this world? Milo thought worriedly. He made a note to start taking anti-vampire precautions. Garlic, holy symbols... where's a Cleric when you need one? Milo sniffed. Quirrell's turban emanated the distinct odour of garlic. Smart, Milo thought, in case they're recurring characters and come for revenge.

"Hold up," Milo said. "Vampires in this world: do they act like, well, like normal vampires? You know, suck blood, never age, can turn other people into vampires? That sort of thing?"

"Y-y-yes," Quirrell stammered reluctantly. He clearly didn't want to talk about vampires anymore.

"They don't age." Milo repeated again. "So they could live forever unless they ran out of blood or someone stakes 'em?"

"I-I s-s-s-suppose so," Quirrell said. His stammer was increasing in frequency.

"Milo, we have to find Hannah. We'll worry about vampires later, okay?" Hermione said.

"No, this is important," he said. Hermione opened her mouth to say Hannah is important, too, so Milo added, "Really important."

Hermione frowned, but fell silent. Quirrell looked intrigued.

"So: we know You-Know-Who wanted to become immortal at any cost, right?" Milo said. "I don't know much, but it sounds to me like that was one of his major motivations."

"Yes," Quirrell said. "Yes, he did ever seek eternal life."

"And, we know that You-Know-Who didn't really die," Milo said. Hermione sighed. We don't know that, she thought. We don't even suspect it. We don't have a shred of evidence.

"Do we, now?" Quirrell asked. "Do we, really? Who else knows?"

"Just us, but it's obvious to anyone with a brain. I'm sure Dumbledore knows all about it, and Harry, Hermione, Ron and I, of course, are going to stop him. Anyways, back to the point: becoming a vampire isn't nearly as nontrivial as, say, some sort of secret dark ritual for eternal life or I don't even know what. All it takes is a couple of minions and a vampire: vampire turns you, minions kill the original vampire, you're free."

"To what purpose?" Quirrell asked.

"Immortality, of course. Eternal unlife. I think we should seriously consider the possibility that You-Know-Who is a vampire," Milo concluded. He had a nagging feeling, like he failed a skill check of some sort, but it was probably nothing. "He doesn't seem the type to mind having to drink blood every so often to live."

Quirrell frowned, but said nothing.

"We need to find Hannah," Hermione stressed. "She could be in serious danger—and all the other first years are still scattered across the castle."

"When last I saw, th-the young M-Miss Abbot w-was swimming to the sh-shore of the lake," Quirrell said, his eyes going briefly distant. Milo wondered what possible reason someone would need to use both Still and Silent spell on Scry. "P-Percy the G-G-G-G- ah, your house's P-Prefect was attempting to u-use a H-H-hovering Charm to a-assist her. I-I believe she is q-quite well."

"Well, that's a relief. I wonder how she wound up there?" Hermione asked. "We should probably try to find all the others now, too."

The task proved somewhat more difficult than they'd hoped, and even with the help of the paintings (who could, at Quirrell's request, attempt to locate the students but not speak to them), it took the better part of the afternoon. Lavender and co had been delayed by Peeves, who managed to convince them that Hannah was just around the corner (and then around the next corner, and the next, and so on until they were hopelessly lost) while Ron had found himself locked in an old, unused classroom, but when he turned around the door had vanished. Harry and Seamus had got cornered by Filch and lectured lengthily about wandering off. They finally found Dean sitting comfortably in the Gryffindor common room, but he refused to say how he'd got there.

"Great," Hermione said worriedly, "just great. After detention and then hunting down our classmates without enough sense to wander off, I haven't had the chance to even touch The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection for a whole day! I've probably forgotten everything and Defence against the Dark Arts is tomorrow!"

"Insufferable, isn't she?" Ron asked Harry, who looked uncomfortable. "How many times have you read that book already, Hermione?"

"Three," she said, then the blood drained from her face. "Oh my god, only three! I'm not going to know anything what if there's a quiz or he asks me, I'm going to j-just stand there in front of everyone and not know the difference between a Grindylow and a Boggart!"

"What, in the name of Elminster's pointy hat, is a Boggart?" Milo asked.

"A household pest that takes the form of whatever its viewer fears," she said shakily.

"You have shapeshifting fear monsters as house pests here?" Milo asked, impressed. "Cool!" Mordy, sitting on his shoulder, nodded vigorously.

"W-we aren't supposed to learn about them until third year but maybe Professor Quirrell will try to get the jump on us like Snape did with Harry, so I thought I should be prepared and read ahead a little, but what if it isn't enough? And I wind up sitting there like Harry did until this trigger-happy lunatic assaults the Slytherins again," she nodded to Milo. "I'm sorry! I don't mean to be insufferable!" she was looking really distraught.

"Hermione, it's alright. Ron's just upset because you were right about not splitting up, and it made him look a mite daft," Harry said gently. He looked at Ron. "I'm sorry, but it did." He turned back to Hermione. "He's embarrassed, is all."

"What, me, mate? Embarrassed?" asked Ron, defensively. "Nah. It's only that this bookworm keeps just leaping at the chance to show how much better she is than us. Really, she should have been in Ravenclaw. Then her own kind would have to put up with her."

Hermione fled the Common Room, sobbing. Hannah shot him a look that could petrify a Medusa with PC class levels, and chased after her.

"What?" he asked. Harry shrugged.

"I think she's been hit by a Crushing Despair spell," Milo said. "Maybe I should go find her, and see if I can—"

"No." Parvati Patil said.

"—see if I can dispel her," he finished. "Then she'd be fine."

"Don't even dream about it. Hannah will handle it, you stay here. Magic," Parvati said, "is not the problem. Ron, a word?" she asked, sounding deceptively sweet.

"Yeah, in a mo, only me and Harry were about to play Wizard's Chess," he said.

"No, Ron. Now." The girl insisted.

o—o—o—o

"I've finally had a response from my contacts at the Ministry," Dumbledore said to his assembled Heads of Houses.

"Albus, it's been nearly a week. Surely they could have responded earlier?" Minerva McGonagall criticised, sitting down across the desk from him. She wondered how he could even think in this office, with all its whirring and clicking silver contraptions. When, and hopefully it would be a long time from today, she became Headmistress she would have them carefully and respectfully placed in a closet someplace. A clean one, of course, but on the other side of the castle.

"Unfortunately, not even Merlin himself could devise a spell capable of cutting through red tape." Dumbledore sighed. "The short answer is that there have been no reported attacks on any wealthy wizard's residence recently, and no detections of underage magic from the vicinity around Hogsmeade."

"I knew it," Snape sneered. "The boy spun us a web of lies. No mere child could escape Death Eaters."

"I really had thought better of him," McGonagall sighed. "Oh well, I suppose he is only a boy. Any word on the broomstick, Filius?"

"Well, as we all know, reported thefts are kept quite confidential down at the DMLE," Filius said. McGonagall sighed, she'd hoped they could make headway there. "But I have a friend from my duelling days down in the Department of Mysteries, and he used to share an office with someone in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and he says that while no official reports have been filed, his old flame down in the organ that handles broomstick registry claims that Walden Macnair—who works as Executioner for the Ministry, but he's an ex-Death Eater—recently bought a Nimbus Two Thousand," Flitwick said proudly, then paused to catch his breath.

"Which tells us what, exactly? These... broomsticks... are, I'm led to believe, extremely popular," Snape said.

"They are also extremely expensive, and Macnair already owned one." Flitwick said with aplomb.

"Hardly evidence. A man can have two broomsticks," Snape said. To Dumbledore, however, he gave a quick, discreet nod. Dumbledore sighed.

"I have other information, and I dare not say from where or who, that suggests the Death Eaters are up to their old game again."

Professor Sprout gasped.

"Surely not, Headmaster? Not with their leader dead, and their numbers reduced?" she asked, her voice gripped with fear.

"I'm afraid so, Pomona."

"We should contact the Aurors at once!" McGonagall exclaimed.

"Without any proof? Lucius would have any who acted sacked," Snape sneered, slouched across his chair.

"I'm afraid, Severus, that you are correct," Dumbledore said. "We shall have to be extra vigiliant."

"And, what of the boy?" Flitwick asked.

"He shall continue his education here at Hogwarts until he learns to control his magic—accidents like what happened in Severus's Potions class cannot be allowed to happen out where Muggles might see—and until we are certain Macnair and his comrades have forgotten that young Milo stole the broomstick," Dumbledore said. "He appears to be an exceptionally confused and troubled young orphan, but his heart is true. Quirinus spoke very highly of him this evening, and how he attempted to help rescue—unsuccessfully, unfortunately—a number of lost Gryffindors."

Snape smiled briefly. He was particularly proud of that punishment.

"Which brings me to another matter," Dumbledore continued gravely. "Hagrid has been finding something most concerning in the Forbidden Forest." The Heads of Houses listened carefully, intrigued. "He's found signs—blood, some hair—that something has been attacking the unicorns who live there."

Sprout gasped. McGonagall looked stunned. Flitwick shook his head sadly, and even Snape looked disgusted. Attacking a unicorn was low, even by his standards.

"Hagrid has been unable to find whatever has been causing the attacks, but Quirrell has volunteered, as Defence Professor, to take over the investigation. He said that it was likely the work of some fell creature—or possibly even a powerful dark wizard."

If the collective amount of surprise felt by the assembled professors were expressed in terms of, say, water, using the baseline of one fair-sized pink plastic beach bucket full of seawater representing the surprise felt when a politician suggests something sensible in Parliament and a bathtub full of water representing the theoretical surprise not felt when the idea doesn't get ridiculed by the opposing party, then their earlier surprise (when they heard of the unicorn attacks) could be collected in a two-litre bottle of Diet Coke (once said Diet Coke has been safely disposed of alongside other toxic chemicals) while their current surprise, caused by hearing that Quirrell had volunteered for something dangerous, was almost, but not quite, the size of the Mediterranean Sea.

"Well, now," McGonagall mused. "It seems we've quite underestimated the Defence Professor."

"Indeed, it appears that, in a crisis, he can really pull himself together," Filius said. "I'm rather proud of him, actually."

"He also pointed out that this is an excellent opportunity for detention," Dumbledore said. "Between him and Hagrid, any students with them will be quite safe, but absolutely petrified."

"You're not suggesting we deliberately send children into the Forbidden Forest—it got its name for a reason, Albus—to hunt after something vile enough to attack a unicorn?"

"I, for one, rather like the idea," Snape said. "Should make that boy think twice about attacking my students."

o—o—o—o

"I heard there's werewolves in the Forbidden Forest!" Ron said when they heard the news. McGonagall had come to inform them that Quirrell had offered an alternate detention for Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Milo; and that while it was particularly awful, if they went then the statue-cleaning punishment for all the Gryffindors would be reduced.

"It's not a full moon, Ron," Hermione sighed.

"What, werewolves are real?" Harry asked.

"Obviously, everyone knows that," said Ron. "They're as real as dragons and goblins."

"Dragons are rea—no, nevermind. If we do this, it counts against how many statues we have to clean—and after the last time, I think we want to avoid that," Harry said. "I'm in."

"Same. The experience alone will be well worth it," Milo said. "And I can probably handle anything they throw at me."

"You're insane, mate," Ron said. "I'd sooner clean another thousand statues than set one foot in that forest."

"I'm with Ron," Hermione said. "Cleaning isn't so bad, and that sounds really dangerous."

"We'll be fine," Milo said. "Quirrell will be with us, and I for one like the cut of his jib."

"And Hagrid will be there," Harry said. "What's the worst that could happen?"